Great Man Theory of Jazz--Not Quite

[Reid]

While we may be able to pick out musicians that exemplified the innovations of particular movements (i.e. Bird--be-bop), it's impossible to credit one musician for the creation of a particular movement/innovation. It is my belief that those great innovators and innovations could not have occurred without a significant group of musicians working on similar musical challenges, utilizing similar approaches and techniques.

This community of musicians would provide an exchange of ideas on these challenges, and the sui generis musicians would come out of this community. I contend that without this kind of community, we would not see these really great innovators. If this is true, Bird would not have developed his innovations without musicians like Dizzy, Roach, Monk, Powell, etc. Actually, I don't think he would have developed his innovations if the community of swing musicians was small, too.

[Sergio Zamora]

Well, yeah. That's like saying that if Newton lived in a cave, away from books, correspondence, unversities, fellow intellectuals, with no scientific education, and nothing but an apple tree to talk to, he *probably* would NOT have discovered the laws of physics.

[crawjo]

I don't know. I see what you are saying about the need for a community...but this is also true of any artform. Painters, sculptors, poets, architects, and writers have been forming "schools" and issuing manifestoes and so forth for centuries.

In theory, I have no problem with the "Great Man Theory of Jazz History." I think the problem arises with the people who define who is "great" and who isn't, who try to push geniuses of the music out of the narrative of jazz history because they don't fit the mold or the storyline, as it were.

I don't think that any movement can be summarized in one individual. But I think if you take a movement, and really study it, then an informed observer can identify who were the great individuals of that movement. Certainly, Parker is not the be-all and end-all of be-bop. But if you add in Gillespie, Monk, Powell, Kenny Clarke, etc. etc. you start to get a good understanding of the music and what it means.

I think one of the big flaws in the Burns history was that it tried to severely limit the number of "great men" in the music. It gave this progression of (something like) "Armstrong, then Beiderbecke, then Ellington, then Goodman, then Basie, then Hawkins, then Parker, then Gillespie, then Monk, then Davis, then Coltrane, then nothing, then Marsalis." It made these individuals, all of whom (excepting Marsalis heh heh) were great, into these towering, impossible figures who just dwarfed everyone around them. There's a bit of truth in that, but it is a distortion, in that it minimizes the contributions of other great artists to the various movements.

[Reid]

sergio,

Obviously, what you say is true, but that's an extreme characterization that no one will dispute. What I'm talking about specifically is the importance of a community of contemporaries for the "great innovator. When we talk about genius, we talk as is the community around the genius is insignifcant. The genius is special and the innovation also solely depends on that genius.

I'm saying the innovation depends on having a significant number of talented people working on the problem in a similar way. They provide a paradigm, to use it in the way Thomas Kuhn did, which is to say there are similar problems, similar ways of solving that problem, similar metaphors and concepts. The community also provides inspiration, competition and raw ideas that geniuses often turn to gold. The more talented the peers in the community the greater the chances are for innovation.

crawjo,

I don't know. I see what you are saying about the need for a community...but this is also true of any artform. Painters, sculptors, poets, architects, and writers have been forming "schools" and issuing manifestoes and so forth for centuries. I don't know. I see what you are saying about the need for a community...but this is also true of any artform. Painters, sculptors, poets, architects, and writers have been forming "schools" and issuing manifestoes and so forth for centuries. I don't know. I see what you are saying about the need for a community...but this is also true of any artform. Painters, sculptors, poets, architects, and writers have been forming "schools" and issuing manifestoes and so forth for centuries.

Absolutely.

I guess, what I'm saying is that we underestimate the importance of the community of contempories. Would Parker have developed his music in the same way without Monk, Diz, Roach, etc.? I tend to think not, at least not in thte same way.

[VIBEr]

[B]Would Parker have developed his music in the same way without Monk, Diz, Roach, etc.? I tend to think not, at least not in thte same way.[B]

I disagree. I think Parker would have developed his music the same way. It's just he would not have had any people to play with, and we never would have heard of him.

I submit that there have probably been a lot of people like Parker, but their sense of innovation never connected with anyone else, so they faded into obscurity.

Clearly, both great individual artists and a context are needed. Who would argue with that?

[Gary Sisco]

True dat, Viber. Another example: Thelonious Monk. Or Sun Ra.

[Pete C]

Bird's playing with McShann, before he settled in NY, is surprisingly fully formed. Of course bop as a nexus was wholly dependent on a like-minded group of innovators & practitioners, but Bird's own playing is more beholden to certain immediate predecessors, like Pres & Christian, as well as the harmonic complexities of Tatum & Hawkins.

[Reid]

Originally posted by John L
Clearly, both great individual artists and a context are needed. Who would argue with that?

Apparently, Gary and vibeR.

[VIBEr]

Originally posted by Reid
Apparently, Gary and vibeR.

Not meaning to speak for Gary, but I think we both agree with John L. as I would interpret John's post.

To elaborate a bit, what is being said about artists developing within a context with other players may be true for most people, but when you're specifically talking about Charlie Parker the rules change. Parker was one of the great musical geniuses of the 20th century, and very likely one of the great musical geniuses of musical history in general, so I can't apply the same sense of context to him as I would to others since Parker is in a class by himself (or perhaps in the same class as Bach and Mozart as improvisors). So I believe that if Bird had never moved to New York, and if he had never played with Diz et al., he still would have been exactly the same player but he would not have been as exposed and recorded so prolifically.

[Gary Sisco]

I was just taking issue with your comments about Bird, is all, Reid. Bird got his concept on his own and then had to go out and find some others who, one, dug the concept, and, two, could understand it and play it. But he got his concept on his own, mid-solo, according to him. Of course, he had then to practice and perfect it, but the concept was his.

Yes, I don't see any real disagreement here between what I wrote and what VIBEr and Gary are saying.

As a great musical genius, if Bird had been born in Austria in the late 18th century, he might have given Mozart a run for his money. But I rather doubt that he would have been playing jazz.

[VIBEr]

Originally posted by John L
As a great musical genius, if Bird had been born in Austria in the late 18th century, he might have given Mozart a run for his money.

Interesting point, John. From what we know, both Bach and Mozart were great improvisors in their respective areas. Supposedly Bach simply improvised fugues during a church service, but Mozart might be the closest comparison to Bird in that both supposedly envisioned their improvisations in their head and the actual performance was simply "copy work."

I've also heard the Beethoven was a great improvisor as well. History would sure be different if audio recording was invented even 100 years earlier.

[stonemonkts]

Originally posted by VIBEr
Interesting point, John. From what we know, both Bach and Mozart were great improvisors in their respective areas. Supposedly Bach simply improvised fugues during a church service, but Mozart might be the closest comparison to Bird in that both supposedly envisioned their improvisations in their head and the actual performance was simply "copy work."

I've also heard the Beethoven was a great improvisor as well. History would sure be different if audio recording was invented even 100 years earlier.

Beethoven was supposedly a virtuoso pianist who improvised in performance (cadenzas). He made money as a young performer playing Mozart's piano concerti. He also supposedly donated much of his income during a period to support Mozart's widow just after her husband's untimely demise.

Bach freely improvised at the organ, especially when he was paid to test the many installed in German churches during his lifetime. I think Bach would have loved jazz.

[Reid]

vibeR said,

To elaborate a bit, what is being said about artists developing within a context with other players may be true for most people, but when you're specifically talking about Charlie Parker the rules change.

How exactly do the rules change? It's almost as if the quality of musicians, whether or not a sizable community existed or not, doesn't matter. There could have been 10 guys playing jazz, and Bird would have developed the music he did. Is it possible that there are individuals that have had similar ablilities as Bird, but were just never able to develop them because of the environment? (And I'm not talking about musician "living in a cave" or dying before they were able not reach their potential.)

Later Gary says,

Bird got his concept on his own and then had to go out and find some others who, one, dug the concept, and, two, could understand it and play it.

What do you mean "Bird got his concept on his own?" This sounds as if Bird's music was innate--that environmental factors were largely irrelevant. I think it's very difficult to separate contributions from the environment from contributions from a person's genes. Sure, I agree was special, but that doesn't mean the environmental factors (i.e. the musicians around him) were irrelevent. See, I think people underestimate the importance of a community with regard to developing ideas--even for those with the abilities of a genius.

The creation of great ideas and innovations are not something that comes soley out of the individual. Sometimes a genius takes an existing idea and modifies it in a way no one else has. Other ideas floating around can inspire the innovator to come up with another idea. It's a back-and-forth between the genius and the contemporaries around him or her that can make a big difference, much bigger than we realize.

[VIBEr]

Originally posted by Reid
How exactly do the rules change? Is it possible that there are individuals that have had similar ablilities as Bird, but were just never able to develop them because of the environment?

That's a very good question. I believe that you can't compare anyone else at the time to Bird, as if to say that there were geniuses and there was Bird who was a genius beyond geniuses. They don't come along very often in a century (Einstein was one, Robert Johnson was probably another), but in jazz music Louis and Bird were simply incomparable to anyone else.

The next answer is armchair psychology on my part. Bird biographer Ross Russell's research indicates that Bird was a sociopathic personality, not in the sense that he went around killing people, but he lived strictly in the present 100% of the time. He had no sense of past or future, no sense of responsibility or the eventual consequences of any of his actions, and his heroin habit must have had a lot to do with that. But as a result he was impervious to his environment, and the musicians with whom he associated. Now this is definitely not true of Louis, but Louis was not the tragic and tortured genius that Bird was. So when I say that the rules change when discussing Bird, this is most definitely part of the equation.

[Pete C]

Bird's innovations definitely came about through a meeting of his pre-bop influences and his own geniuses. It would be ridiculous to say his style was completely sui generis, but I don't think anybody is really claiming that. But Bird did essentially develop his thing within a swing jazz community, albeit one where influences like Christian & Young were already altering the landscape.